“I only say if worse comes to worst.”
Catherine folded the paper and put it into her pocket, next to the letter from her son. “Now I have something more to show you.” She ran to her still room to fetch the velvet pouch from an empty herb jar and laid it between them. “I found it among my things while you were gone. What do you make of it?”
Benjamin shook his head. “What is it, an old relic? You must dispose of it.” He felt of the fabric, then pulled the drawstrings open. He whistled gently and laid it down again. “Why have you not turned it over to your Lady?”
“I haven’t found the opportunity. And with that man about the place—I was afraid.”
“Get rid of it. Give it up. Say you found it today.”
“The same advice that Ann has given me. Speak of the devil—
Ann Smith stuck her head in from the hall. “I thought I heard whispering. Hello to you, Benjamin Davies. Are you finished upstairs?”
“I have lost a hand at cards most nobly.”
“And you are alone?”
“He is in the stable, Ann, looking after the horses.”
“I simply asked a question of you,” said Ann. But she was gone.
“Come,” said Catherine. “I want you beside me when I do it.” They stood and for a moment they were face to face. He stepped forward, and Catherine let herself walk into his arms. She turned up her face and let him kiss her, his hands on her back, then her breasts, then between her legs. It felt natural and fine, unlike any sin she had committed.
“God’s blood, Catherine. Let’s run up to your chamber first. They won’t miss me.”
“No.” She pushed him off. “Enough. Not in broad day.”
“We’ve done it under the sun often enough.”
Her ears thudded with wild blood, and she held her breath until her heart calmed itself. “Come with me.” She spun and trotted up the steps, Benjamin close behind her. They stopped in the front hall and listened. No one was about. His body was against her back, and she could feel him, even through the thick skirt. “Back away now.” But she was biting a smile from her lips.
Jane Dudley came through with Lady Anne. “Where is the food?” she said.
“Oh, I have clean forgot it,” said Benjamin. “And my man has deserted me.”
“We cannot play the cards on empty stomachs,” said Anne.
Benjamin said, “Lady Catherine has something to give you.”
“Yes, I have found something.”
“What is to be done for you?”
Catherine laid the velvet pouch in Anne’s hand. “I discovered this among my private goods. I have not seen it before and was troubled that someone might have dropped it without knowing.”
Lady Anne spilled the money into her palm. She lifted the coins into the light. Then she raised the pouch itself, weighing the thickness of the fabric between her fingers.
“It is a large thing to be lost.”
“The more reason to find its owner,” said Catherine. “I am sure whoever has dropped this is frantic.”
Jane Dudley took a few of the coins. “It’s very kind of you, Catherine. I am sure the Lady Anne will seek out the owner.” She returned them to the pile. “And I will be sure that Martin Martins includes these in his reports. Meanwhile, we will use them in jest for our games. Madam, will we play again?”
Anne smiled. “Yes. Will you play now, Catherine?”
Catherine curtsied. “Forgive me, Lady Anne. But no.”
“Ach,” said Anne. “It will be just Jane and me.” She waved one hand in the air. “You are forgived. Benjamin, you will be Catherine’s accompaniment?”
“If you will give me leave,” said Benjamin, bowing. “I think I have shown myself a poor partner to you.”
“Yes, yes. Harst is bad player too. Go on and make the love between you,” said Anne. Jane cut a quick look over her shoulder as they turned to go.
“You must make a thorough search of your things on a regular schedule,” said Benjamin when the others were out of hearing. “And put that paper where no one can find it. I cannot say whether the country will turn right or left now. But move it will.” He checked the stairs for onlookers and, turning,took her by the shoulders. “Catherine, do you hear me?”
She smelt the fresh ale and bread on his breath. It was like the outdoor air. “I hear you,” she said. She touched his face with the fingers of her left hand.
“I will ride to Dover and trade your shearing. Wait for me. The ways are all muck and winterish. Your father will have published all of the banns by the time I return, and then we will go together, let anyone say what they will. But until then, be like the watchman in the tower, looking out for the enemy.”
“And if no enemy appears, I must be silent. My mouth cannot endure it.”
“Then let me give you mine.” He put his lips on hers.
“I’ve told you. No whiff of scandal here.” But a muscle in his temple squirmed, and she pulled him to her. Her body warmed against his, even through the thick wool.
“Your own lady has given permission for us to ‘make the love.’”
Catherine grinned, despite herself. “Indeed she has. Upstairs,” she whispered.
He turned and took the stairs two at a time. Catherine closed her eyes and counted until she could no longer hear his boot soles. She counted another ten, said a prayer for her soul, then took her quiet way up to her room.
12
The next morning, Benjamin was gone and Catherine found herself sitting at the long table, alone with the king’s man, who stood at her right. “There are funds missing,” said Martin David Martins. His forefinger tapped an open accounting book, and the sun gilded its bloody, chewed rim. “And the jewels have not been found. I hear you have had a suitor in the house.” The man ought to wear gloves, thought Catherine. It might stop his bad habit. Or at least conceal its effects.
“I am a widow. And what have I to do with the household monies?” She leaned backward to stay clear of the codpiece. It had been embroidered with small gems and two gold tassels that bounced as Martins swayed on his little feet. “I have control of the kitchen expenses, and you may see into the comings and goings of all the meat and bread that you please.” She was still lost in memory of the afternoon before, the man’s body over hers in daylight, a sin by any reckoning, and the sweetness of his scent. The musk caught in his long hair. The hardness of him, opening her body and filling her with warmth. She had shown him the dark new baby-line that ran from her mound to her navel, and he had traced it with his tongue. Her belly muscles twisted a little at the thought, and she felt a murmur pass her lips before she could clamp her mouth shut. He would return before the strawberries were ripe. She said, “I have business in the North.”
“You have business here.” Martins raised the edge of the book and let it fall closed with a thump. A puff of dust made Catherine sneeze. A napkin appeared before her eyes. “Let me offer you my assistance. Now that you are without your man.”
“I have been without a man for these three years.” Catherine pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “I can take care of my own face. I have tasks and you impede me.” Martins strolled to the window and crossed his arms. The sun glared down from its high seat and gave him a ghostly cast. He seemed a man of wax, softening in the warmth. “You might have a more prominent position here at Richmond. Or somewhere closer to the king’s service.” He turned. “You have youth yet. A smooth skin. A man might call you beautiful.”
“I am overcome with joy. Let me run and buy myself a glass.” Catherine rose and moved toward the door.
“I do not mean for you to flee,” he said. He moved toward her faster than she thought such bulk could travel, and halted, quivering in the flanks, in front of her. “I could do you favors, Lady.”
A line of beard and mustache still embroidered his lips and
chin, and the poor thin hairs clung to drops of sweat. Or water. Or spittle. The man’s forehead was a shining dome, and Catherine felt her bile begin to boil up. “I need no favors, but I thank you for the kindness.” She backed away a few steps to get some untainted air. Martins stroked his face and the beard flattened. It looked drawn on. “You have a devil in you. Hmph. They say the old sisters cannot reform themselves in the ways of the new world. Is that how you came to be a widow? Did the demon in you do away with your man? A man you ought never to have been allowed?”
A cold fear bit through Catherine’s chest. Her hand stopped on the door latch.“My husband died in a contest of honor. He killed the man who spoke slanders of me.”
“It’s said that he died after a long illness. And you in the house there with him. You know that some say the king was bewitched when the Lady Anne came to his bed.”
“I have nothing to say about the king’s bed. And you should stop your ears against such talk.”
“And your husband’s sister, spirited away. So they say.”
“If any spirit took my sister-in-law, it was the one under her own heart. It took her directly into the queen’s own chambers, and then out again. Even now she treads the earth as other women do.” Martins nipped the edge of his thumb and dragged off a sliver of skin. He chewed thoughtfully, then spat. The thumb brightened with a bubble of blood and he tongued it. “Margaret Overton, is that right?”
The fear squirreled down Catherine’s sides now and she crossed her arms to keep from scratching him. “Yes. As you seem to know right well.”
Shrugging, the man returned to the accounting book and riffled the pages. “She is said to be in the North. Such a wild place.” He looked up, squinting. “Have you had word of her?”
“You’re telling tales. You’ve heard nothing of Margaret Overton.”
He pushed his lips together. “If I had heard of her, she would be the only Overton of which there is news.” He looked at Catherine. “You have renounced your married self, have you not?”
“My son is called Overton and he will have the house when he comes of age. My daughter will be whoever she chooses. I will see that she is well dowried.”
“I see. Very advanced. Very . . . French one might say. So. You and the Lady Anne of Cleves have much in common. A history of witchcraft. A retaking of maiden names. Houses to call your own. Continental ideas. Much in common, a man might say.” Catherine gripped the latch again and reined her voice to a steady pace. “We each have two feet and two eyes and hair upon our heads as well.”
Martins slid closer, his wide hips and legs driving the top of him forward. It was like watching a chess piece being moved by an invisible hand. But now he was upon her, the close-set eyes driven almost together by the intensity of his stare.
“Such a head of hair, too. A man would like to see it uncovered.” He reached for her hood. Catherine flinched, grabbing at the headpiece. “Do not touch me. It is not seemly.”
“I will have you uncovered, and who is to stop me?” He yanked the hood sideways, and Catherine’s hair came down. “You have had a man on you already. It will not harm you to be touched.”
Catherine still wore the coif underneath, and she clapped her hand over it, but the dark curls fell down her back. “Is this enough? Will you have me stripped for your entertainment?”
Martins held the hood at arm’s length with one hand and fingered the ends of Catherine’s hair. She closed her eyes against him, but the darkness brought his stench more sharply to her mind. Cooked meat and old fish. He breathed like a man newly come from a joust. She tried to imagine Benjamin, but the image would not hold. She clamped the inside of her cheek with her teeth, trying not to retch.
“I have not hurt you, have I?” Catherine felt the hood being thrust into her hand, and she opened her eyes. Martins said, “I can be your friend, Lady Catherine. You want a friend. A true friend. I could see that you stay here, safe as a nestling under its mother.”
“Yes,” said Catherine. Her teeth threatened to chatter. “You have been the soul of courtesy to me.”
He smiled at this.“Does someone in the Lady Anne’s circle keep a few coins aside for herself? Is there someone who has expenses that can’t be recorded? She would confide in you, wouldn’t she? Any lady could trust you, a woman so much like herself. One who maintains a . . . a humble position in the palace. Has someone promised you something? You needn’t fear for yourself.” He twisted a curl of her hair in his fingers again. “The Lady Anne’s good name is my only object, an assurance of the purity of her companions and her books.”
“My books are kept by my father and my stewards in the North, and the Lady Anne’s are not my province. I am no more like her well-bred ladies than is my pony to Pegasus. I serve her in the way that best suits me. I was not raised to fineness as the others were.” Catherine forced the hood back over her hair. “I must see to the dinner for you and the others. And I must rearrange myself.”
“You ladies, always arranging yourselves. Yes, I see how you manage it, with your pins and your powders. Some have had their arrangements done for them.” He leaned past her and opened the door. “Or undone.” Catherine fled through the high hall and down the stairs to the kitchen, where Ann Smith was showing three maids how to cut a half of venison. The four women turned from their task, raising their red hands into the air to keep the blood from their aprons. Ann held a large cleaver, and Catherine recoiled at the blade. “Sweet wounds of Jesus, put that thing out of my face.” She splashed herself in the basin and, collapsing next to the hearth, asked, “Where is my daughter?”
“She’s in the laundry with Agnes, practicing her embroidery,”said Ann, “as you instructed her to do.” She handed the instrument to the first maid and said, “Cut there. Through the center of the joint where the bones come together. The leg should come free in one piece.” Ann rinsed her hands in the water Catherine had used, then tossed it into the sluice that ran to the river. She squatted and put her hand on Catherine’s shoulder. The maid wrestled with the corpse until the joint sprang open, sending thick blood spooling to the floor.
Catherine said, “I’m—I don’t know what I am.” She put her hands over her eyes and shouted, “Will you take that dead thing into another room?” The maids froze, terrified, the table strewn with pieces of flesh. Ann said, “Take it out.”
Sebastian moved to help, and Catherine said, “Leave it. It’s nothing. I don’t know what I say. I’m going to be sick.” She ran to the slop bucket and vomited.
Ann opened the back door and shooed, and the girls, holding up their hands, scuttled out. “Rinse at the trough!” she called before turning back to Catherine. “Who has put you in this frame of mind?”
“It’s that man. That money-man. Martin Martins. Martin David Martins. He almost asked me to trade my body for my freedom. He means to lay something treasonous at the Lady Anne’s charge. Or at someone else’s. He means to find something to show the king. He means to raise himself. And I must sit like Penelope and wait for my man. I cannot do it.”
“You’re no Penelope. She knew her way around a needle,” said Ann, but Catherine did not smile. “I have always thought her as boring as a caged partridge anyway. The wait will not be long.” Catherine pulled the letter from her pocket. “Let me read something to you.”
Ann fetched a towel and cleaned Catherine’s face. “Isn’t that the letter from Robbie?” Catherine shook it out. “The very one.”
“But I have heard it already.”
“Not this part. I passed over it. After he speaks of his father, he says, ‘My lady mother, I hope not to see you fit another man to my father’s place. The prince maintains that a widow keeps her soul intact by keeping her body faithful to one husband. Keep to the good, Mother, and submit yourself to my father’s memory.’”
“No boy has writ this. He has been listening to someone read out of a book of morals. Something by
one of those Protestant men. They want their wives to be children.”
Catherine folded it again. “It’s his hand. He means Benjamin. He doesn’t even acknowledge the gift of the horse.”
“Did you show this to Benjamin?”
“No. I as much as told him of its meaning.”
“How can a little boy mean anything at all in speaking of his mother’s marriage? This has been writ by one of the prince’s men.”
“I will not be dictated to, not by my own son. Does he threaten me?” She gnawed her lip. “My own Robbie?”
Ann said, “Boys parrot what they hear. That’s all. Your worries should be coming to an end, Catherine. You may not be Penelope, but at least do not be Joan of Arc and run headlong into trouble. It may come to meet you if you seek it out.” Sebastian lifted the heavy spit, fat with impaled hens, and it clunked into place like a lock.
13
The weather grew warmer over the next week, and the air of the palace became fetid with bodies sweating under unwashed wool. Ann Smith crept into the upstairs rooms in the afternoons, while the ladies were occupied at cards, to gather the stale clouts and napkins and shifts from the corners and under the beds. Catherine came and went, ordering the maids and counting the barrels of wine, all the while listening for the sound of Benjamin’s horse in the lane. Her front was still flat enough, but her hand crept over her skirt, smoothing the fabric again and again.
The king called the Lady Anne to him again, and though she was only absent the day, she returned to Richmond full of laughter, giving out ribbons to the younger girls and cheap rings to the ladies. She dropped her cloak in the front hall and did not look back to see if it had been taken up.
Ann Smith met Catherine on the back stairs the next morning. Ann was carrying a pile of stained hose, and Catherine followed her back down to the laundry and watched her friend dump the lot into hot water. “The whole place stinks of piss and dirty women.” Holding her nose, Ann stirred the mess of cloth with a wooden paddle. “Lady Anne is in a distraction, and the women are left with nothing to do.”
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